Stranger Things Demogorgon for 5e

Netflix’s show Stranger Things is a love letter to 80’s entertainment. It takes Spielberg, Stephen King, John Carpenter, and George Lucas and puts them in a blender, creating a fantastic 8 hours of television. One of the highlights of the show is its unabashed love of D&D, as it is a major part of the show, as it’s used in both advancing the plot and in the show’s world-building….

Spoilers ahead…

The kids are first introduced by playing D&D around a table (not unlike the kids in E.T.), and the party is fighting the Demogorgon (!) (as a side note, they are shown playing the BECMI D&D blue Mentzer expert set). Later on, when the show’s inter-dimensional monster is introduced, the kids refer to it as the Demogorgon. Also, the creature’s home dimension is referred to in the show as the “Upside Down”, but it is clearly inspired by D&D’s Plane of Shadow or the Shadowfell, as it is literally shown as an echo of the world, with corresponding locations from the world clocked in darkness and despair.

End Spoilers….

So I thought it would be neat to stat the creature out for 5e D&D. The real Demogorgon already exists for the game, having appeared in the Out of the Abyss adventure, so I created a version based on what we see from the creature in the show, and at a CR 6, so it’s playable in lower level D&D campaigns.

Anyway, I did it just to have a little fun with D&D, and a show I love so very much, as it pushes all my 80s nostalgia buttons the right way. I was around the kids’ age in 1983, so it’s letting me relive a lot of my childhood.

You can find my version of the Stranger Things Demogorgon, laid out like a page straight out of the Monster Manual, here:

This is a thing of beauty. Thank you for sharing it. I’ve been running my son through some 5e adventures with a plot liberally stolen from Stranger Things (which he hasn’t seen). This would make a nice bit of icing on that cake.

Rather than blind sense to 240ft, it’s probably 60ft to 120ft but they have a feature similar to that of a revenant where they can track prey -except it’s through blood and it’s general prey, not unique to a single creature.

It would also need a bonus to perception skill checks and would need advantage on perception checks based on smell.

It also has Etherealness where it can enter the ethereal plane and vice versa. And regeneration at the start of its turn for 10HP would also fit I think. Just some thoughts.

Rather than blind sense to 240ft, it’s probably 60ft to 120ft but it could have a feature similar to that of a revenant where it can track prey -except it’s through blood and it’s general prey, not unique to a single creature.

It would also need a bonus to perception skill checks and would need advantage on perception checks based on smell.

It also has a variation on Etherealness where it can sense treats in the fabric on the physical plane to enter from the ethereal/different plane and vice versa.

And regeneration at the start of its turn for 10HP unless it takes magical /radiant damage would also fit I think. Just some thoughts.